This was our last morning in New Orleans. It was a great visit, but it's getting time to head for home. Our route today is really easy. Just head up Canal St, turn right on Broad St, otherwise known as US-90E and keep going until we reach Crestview, FL. The weather wasn't looking too promising. Not really a lot of rain, but the possibility of showers all day.
     US-90 is really a scenic highway, especially between New Orleans and Mississippi . It mostly follows the gulf along with all the bayous along the way.   There are these great stilt houses on both sides of the road, and water is everywhere. All of the stilt houses look new since we were here in 2001. Most were destroyed in one of the hurricanes that had passed through since then. They were still great to look at.
       Once we reached Mississippi, the rain started to fall. First just a little drizzle, so we didn't bother with the rainsuits. Bust as soon as we spotted a McDonald's in the distance, the sky seemed to open up and we got soaked. As soon as we pulled into McDonald's, the rain stopped again. We had skipped breakfast in New Orleans so we could get a jump on the ride. Now was time to stop to both dry out, and get a McDonald's big breakfast and coffee.
     While we were at McDonald's we met a retired Boeing machinist in his 80's who was just starting his motorcycle ride down to the Keys. We chatted for a while, waiting for the rain, which had restarted, to stop again . He was funny, and when then rain subsided, we were back on our way. This time, we put on our rainsuits just in case. As we passed deeper into Mississippi, the Gulf Shore beaches began to
appear. US-90 in Mississippi follows the Gulf, and there are white
sandy beaches right along side the road. By now the blue skies were back, and it was starting to get warmer. So we put the rainsuits back, never to be taken back out for the rest of the day.
     We stopped at the Mississippi beaches for a couple of pictures. It was really nice to see Gulf Shore sand again. We always like Florida's gulf shore beaches much better than the east coast beaches. We were really enjoying the beach scenery as we passed through Mississippi, and without realizing it, we were already in Alabama. In the meantime, there had been a couple of minor rain showers, just a little drizzle here and there to cool us off. We didn't mind, the temperature was great. Once we got closer to Mobile, the scenery was more strip mall and traffic lights, but once out of town, the scenery improved again.
     It was getting around 2:00 when we crossed into Florida. It felt good to be getting closer to home. It was warm again, and everything was a little greener. We even got to see palm trees again. It was just a great, relaxing afternoon ride. The weather kept threatening a little all afternoon with more brief showers, but by 4:30 we made it to the hotel. First thing there, Jody called her Mom and Dad to let them know we were here. We set up for them to pick us up and take us out to dinner at the Wild Olive, Jody's favorite place in Crestview. It was nice seeing Bob & Joan again and I was glad to hear that they had been following our adventures on the blog.
     Dinner was excellent, as usual, we both had the Chicken Parmesan and we even splurged for the Brownie ala Mode dessert. But both of us were pretty wiped out from our travels, and just wanted to get back to the hotel to make an early night of it. We have a long ride tomorrow. So tonight, we are both in bed before 9:00, resting up for the 400+ mile ride tomorrow on the last leg of our journey home. This is our last night in a hotel, we should be in our own bed for tomorrow night. We can both hardly wait!

268.0 miles today
19,465.7 miles total

3.591 gallons today
461.751 gallons total